Washington Post Vs. Paternalistic Breast Cancer Guidelines

She notes that "anxiety" is being increasingly invoked as a (bad) reason to limit screening mammography, especially for women between ages 40-49:

And yet, there was a 19th-century echo in the American Cancer Society’s announcement this past week of revised guidelines for breast cancer screening.
Whereas anxiety was once a reason for aggressive medical intervention,
it is now invoked to avoid intervention — an argument that is both
patronizing and unscientific. There may be good reasons for women in
their early 40s to forgo regular mammograms, but this isn’t one of them.

A reference to anxiety appears in the very first paragraph of the harms-and-benefits analysis
commissioned by the cancer society: While early screening “reduces
breast cancer mortality, there are a number of potential harms,
including false-positive results, which result in both unnecessary
biopsies and increased distress and anxiety related to a possible
diagnosis of cancer.”

But the idea that anxiety is a major harm doesn’t have much scientific support...

There will always be uncertainty in cancer screening. And that
uncertainty understandably fuels anxiety. But most false-positive
mammograms are quickly resolved by additional imaging. Among the cases
that progress to biopsies, 9 out of 10 show no sign of cancer. And even
when there is a breast cancer diagnosis, that’s not equivalent to a
death sentence. Doctors should be able to respond to anxiety rationally,
putting fears in context and expediting follow-up testing and results
to limit what can be an agonizing wait.

About FIRM

America was founded on the principles of freedom and individual rights. Applied to medicine, the law must respect the individual rights of doctors and other providers, allowing them the freedom to practice medicine. This includes the right to choose their patients, to determine the best treatment for their patients, and to bill their patients accordingly. In the same manner, the law must respect the individual rights of patients, allowing them the freedom to seek out the best doctors and treatment they can afford.

Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM) promotes the philosophy of individual rights, personal responsibility, and free market economics in health care. FIRM holds that the only moral and practical way to obtain medical care is that of individuals choosing and paying for their own medical care in a capitalist free market. Federal and state regulations and entitlements, we maintain, are the two most important factors in driving up medical costs. They have created the crisis we face today.

Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine was founded by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, MD in 2007. It is now managed by Paul Hsieh, MD.